When you walk into a party, it doesn’t take long to figure out if you’re going to stick around for a while or call it an early night. Who’s on the guest list? How’s the venue? What are the activities? The same can be said about booting up a new Mario Party for the first time, and after spending roughly an hour with Super Mario Party Jamboree, I’m confident saying I’ll probably hang out until the house lights come on at last call.
It feels good to say that, because Mario Party’s quality has been all over the board since franchise developer Nintendo Cube (recently rebranded from NDcube) took over party planning duties over a decade ago. They threw all four players together in a car for some reason, had us face off against a giant Bowser who used the Wii U GamePad, and developed a few middling 3DS entries that tried – but ultimately failed – to refresh the Mario Party formula.
But things started to turn around with 2018’s Super Mario Party, which took us out of the car and put us back on the board in a game that was definitely a step in the right direction. Nintendo Cube followed that up with 2021’s Mario Party Superstars, a brilliant prance through past parties that reminded us of the series’ glory days back on Nintendo 64 and GameCube.
Now, this entry looks to combine all the learnings from both Super and Superstars into one new ultimate party package, and based on my time with it so far, Super Mario Party Jamboree has the potential to be the best original Mario Party game in over 15 years.
First off, the guest list is on point. Jamboree features 22 playable characters (that we know of so far), already the largest roster the series has ever seen. The classics are all here – for years the Mario Party series toyed with characters like Donkey Kong, Toad, and Toadette, relegating them to hosting duties or minigame side modes, but they’re all back on the roster. Newcomers Pauline and Ninji are welcome additions, and I was personally thrilled to see my beloved Boo make a comeback, and I didn’t hesitate to pick him for my first jamboree.
Our party planners also picked a great venue. There are seven boards in Jamboree, and I got to take a few turns on Mega Wiggler’s Tree Party, a beautiful forest-themed map with a giant Wiggler in the center that rotated positions if someone landed on a specific space, unlocking alternate paths and faster routes to the Star. This mechanic led to that perfect mixture of Mario Party luck and strategy where you can try to outline out your next few turns to make sure you get to the Star first, but something is bound to come up that will throw a banana peel in those plans.
I had a blast playing classic Mario Party rules on a brand new board for the first time since Mario Party 8 and Mario Party DS in 2007. Stars cost 20 coins as they should, and there were no character-specific dice blocks that made things feel unnecessarily unbalanced in Super Mario Party. The board was also big, which is a relief after Super Mario Party’s tiny locations that were so small you could barely justify a 10-turn game on them. But in Jamboree, it’s looking like you’ll be able to get a lot of mileage out of the boards, and I was told you can party for up to 30 turns if you want.
On my first turn, I swung by the item shop to buy something from Koopa Troopa. While browsing the wares, I noticed a few new items, like a Shop Hop Box that warps you right to a random shop, which could get interesting if the shops stock powerful items like Golden Pipes in the latter half of each game. And, board-specific items have made a comeback, with a Wiggler Bell that gives you the power to change the position of the Mega Wiggler sleeping in the middle of the map.
Thanks to some lucky high rolls and a strategic item purchase of some Double Dice, I snagged the first Star of the game on Turn 2. This is definitely a nitpick, but I was disappointed to see that no one was there to sell me the star as in previous Mario Party games, and instead it felt like I completed my transaction at self checkout, but that’s probably only going to bother the most diehard of Mario Party fans.
Speaking of things you’ll only notice if you’ve played hundreds of Mario Party games, the UI has seen a major revamp when characters are exploring the board. Instead of the standings occupying the screen’s four corners, your coins, Stars, and item inventory are all lined up on the bottom screen in such a way where you can see who is up next and how long until the next minigame. Stickers make a return from Superstars, and this UI change benefits that as well, because players can still taunt each other endlessly without rudely blocking important options, like when a player is trying to buy a Star.
No Mario Party is complete without a great collection of minigames, and I was impressed with virtually every competition I played. Prime Cut was a great two-vs-two minigame where I had to work with my partner to cut a steak perfectly in half. I don’t know why the Mario Party series has built a reputation for having amazing-looking steak, but I’m happy it’s back.
The best new minigame I saw, though, was Sandwiched, which was reminiscent of Mario Party 4’s Booksquirm, where we were standing in a picnic basket and had to avoid getting crushed by a downpour of endless finger sandwiches until only one of us was left. I narrowly got second place, and it left me wanting to get right back in for another round.
Meanwhile, Granite Getaway returns from Mario Party 6, where I frantically ran (or in Boo’s case, floated?) away from a giant boulder, Indiana Jones-style. Much like the set of seven boards in Jamboree, it’s fun to see the series combine old and new with the minigame selection. Because even though new minigames always have the chance to be great, let’s face it, you just can’t beat the classics.
We didn’t get to finish our game of Mario Party before moving on, but I did squeeze in a couple more classic moments, like passing another Boo who stole coins from an opponent for me, or unfortunately landing on a space that moved the Wiggler, allowing Goomba to scamper by and steal the next Star from right under my nose.
Next, I said goodbye to Boo and hello to Goomba as I transitioned to see Jamboree’s new 20-player online multiplayer modes. Nintendo is leaning hard into Jamboree’s online offerings, proven by the fact that it’s bundling Jamboree with a three-month individual membership for Nintendo Switch Online.
The first mode I tried was Koopathlon, where you race 19 other players to be the first to complete five laps around a long track. I was only playing against three other people and 16 NPCs, but when Jamboree goes online at launch it’s designed to be played with 19 other real people. You progress along the track by collecting coins in various single-player minigames that everyone competes in simultaneously. This included tasks like collecting as many coins as possible while running up a sandy hill, a bread-baking challenge where I had to watch seven different pastries cook and remove them from the oven before they burned, and a whack-a-mole contest where I had to hit the Monty Moles and pass over the Bob-ombs. I had a great time with all of these, as the right side of the screen showed an up-to-date map of the race track, so I could see how I was faring against my human competitors on the overall leaderboard.
After three rounds of minigames, we were faced with a Bowser minigame where we had to survive as long as we could or risk losing serious progress on the track. Seeing my Goomba run for dear life while Bowser chased us down across a collapsing bridge surrounded by lava was memorable, intense, and very reminiscent of the GameCube days of Mario Party, where losing a Bowser minigame could throw you completely off the rails. The Koopathlon was fun, but to be honest I don’t see myself ever picking it over either the classic Mario Party experience or the myriad of other online battle royales that are out there.
Finally, Kaboom Squad is Jamboree’s cooperative mode, and it was the last thing I got to try out. Twenty players had to work together to load bombs into a cannon to take down a giant Bowser that was stomping around doing his best Godzilla impression. After the clock runs out each round, we would play a cooperative minigame to earn power-ups for the next bout against the King of the Koopas. The power-ups allowed us to carry more bombs or drop boost pads on the map to get to and from the cannon faster. The cooperative minigames were fine, like a tower defense game where we had to defend a gate from Bob-ombs swarming us from all directions, but I don’t play Mario Party to work together, I play it to ruin friendships like everyone else.
It took us about 15 minutes to take Bowser down, and it just felt a little too long. With how many other choices there are at the Super Mario Party Jamboree buffet, I’m not sure how often I’ll go back for seconds in this mode. Finally defeating Bowser was satisfying enough, but certainly didn’t provide the same rush as outlasting my opponents in a minigame or being the first to buy a Star on the board.
Apart from the 20-player modes that didn’t leave a huge impression, Super Mario Party Jamboree is shaping up to be an excellent return to form for the series. After Superstars successfully returned to the franchise’s greatest hits, I’ve been hopeful that the next new entry would be a worthy followup to the classics. And so far, the time I spent rolling dice, buying Stars, and betraying friends on Jamboree’s opening board has me convinced that it has a strong understanding of what longtime Mario Party fans want. While I’ve only seen a handful of Jamboree’s enormous lineup of 110+ minigames, I was genuinely impressed with the ones I played, and I’m thrilled some of the classic minigames are coming back to accompany the new ones. We’ll have to wait and see if the rest of the boards can stay away from some of the unwelcome gimmicks that have plagued the series in recent years, but for now I’m optimistic that Jamboree is the party I’ve been waiting for an invitation to.
